As the final page flattered shut, she sighed. Such a thing was a tale well told; such magic that had transported and delighted her. A passionate man, whose sensuality had captured a beautiful women and their intense romance had unfolded in Paris and with the final denoument, she was ejected firmly from their world into her own. Awake suddenly in the half light of the dying day in the empty expanse of her home. Her heart still longing to beat faster, to gaze into the eyes of one who wanted her as intensely as the hero wanted the lady of her stories.

These moments were the worst, in her everyday life, she was firm and bright, independant and strong but here in the confines of her sanctum; the longing she held hidden could finally be allowed to surface.  Wryly smiling at her reflection: an ugly unremarkable face, as much as she knew the impossibilities of fate, great love was never meant for her. Still surfacing from a great love story was never easy, she felt like she was gasping on the shore of her life, still doused in the remains of the characters love. Still afire with alien desire. Under the sensible clothes of her hard working life beat the soul of one who hungered for a great love.

She often felt not like the beauty but most like the beast: singular, fierce, fearsome and entirely unloved. And like the beast maybe she was the last and only one of her kind. Pouring herself another cup of coffee, she promised out loud: 'no more'. Then she laughed. Even to herself in an empty cold room, that was an empty promise.

 

She used books like a junkie may use drugs. For succour, when the edges of the real world grew too hard, when her heart became to cold, then she read. Plunging head first into epic adventures, great loves and headlong sensuality. She devoured them voraciously, until her heart grew warm again and her sweet vulnerable hunger tugged at her heart. She would not loose her fire to this hard world. Books floated her like life boats, kept her heart alive and even though in the cold logical depths of her big crackling working mind; she knew she would never find a lifetime love; her books kept her from letting this turn her cold and calculating. They anchored her foolish youthful dreams and lit the fires of her passion. She read like others ate a delicious meal, for pure sensual pleasure.

She read to remind herself that whilst she may not have great love; she still stood on dark  nights beneath a great moon that looked down on lovers somewhere. She read to sustain her vulnerable soul, she read for that little girl whose first once upon a time had caused her eyes to come alive. She read because without books; she could feel her eyes glaze over, she could feel the slow transformation to an automaton.

 

Life she found was a slow dissolution, a woman who stood alone was subject to a change. The world scoured away her softness, her dreams and her vulnerabilities till she is a harder version of herself. She wouldn't giver up her dreams, her hurts or her self. She could not concede and so despite the fact that it made her life infinitly more convoluted, she read. She hoarded them and dove inside them. She fought page by page to keep her dreams and her heart. She read like a dying man sucking the very marrow out of his final minutes. She read to keep herself alive. She read!